309 Quotes by Anatole France

The sadness of churches at night moves me; I feel in them the grandeur of nothingness.

There, in a livid light, the demons tormented the souls of the damned. The souls preserved the appearance of the bodies which had held them, and even wore some rags of clothing. These souls seemed peaceful in the midst of their torments.

The law, in its majestic impartiality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under the bridges of Paris.

As to the kind of truth one finds in books, it is a truth that enables us sometimes to discern what things are not, without ever enabling us to discover what they are.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.

One thing above all gives charm to men’s thoughts, and this is unrest. A mind that is not uneasy irritates and bores me.

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges...

Have we not seen many times indeed human beings who, poor and naked, prostrate themselves before all the phantoms of fear, and rather than follow the teaching of well-disposed demons, obey the commandments of cruel demiurges?

But I deny that He created the world; at the most He organised but an inferior part of it, and all that He touched bears the mark of His rough and unforeseeing touch.